‘Pawna firing was encounter killing’

MUMBAI: Sheer pandemonium reigned the House on Thursday to take a break for 20 minutes when the assembly observed silence to pay homage to the late former governor Dr P C Alexander.
For the third day, the Opposition stalled the House proceedings to protest against the killings of farmers on the Mumbai-Pune expressway on Tuesday. They alleged that the farmers were holding a peaceful rally against the land acquisition for a Pimpri Chinchwad pipeline project that will divert water from Pawna dam from their fields.The opposition accused the government of staging an encounter as the police, they claimed, shot a farmer, Moreshwar Sathe, at point-blank range in their custody. The opposition claimed that they had media footage as evidence of the killing. The assembly was stalled five times and the council four times before being adjourned for the day.
After the third disruption, as the panel speaker, Nawab Malik, convened the House and started reading the items on the day’s agenda, the opposition members encircled him and tried to snatch away the papers, holding up banners and shouting slogans. As more opposition legislators surged onto the speaker’s podium, the table beside principal secretary Anant Kalse’s table toppled over. The House was adjourned for an hour.
Home minister R R Patil assured the opposition that if the allegations were true, the government would charge the guilty cops with murder. “The government will name the judge to head the inquiry within a week and it will probe all angles,” he said, adding that he had ordered the suspension of the cops who had vandalized private cars.
In a cabinet meeting later, ministers, not convinced by Patil’s assurance, asked for a factual account of the incident from both Patil and deputy CM Ajit Pawar who is also the local district guardian minister.